In content marketing, you’ve the choice to command attention or fizzle out.

Most bloggers think you can’t cause your content to go viral, but I don’t agree. Throw a stone at me for all I care…

True. Some blog posts can be shared even when you did nothing to it.

But if you want every piece of content you write to reach 20, 50, 100 or 1000s of readers & prospective customers, there are flexible buttons you can press.

It may not be easy – but it’s possible.

In this post, I want to share with you the 13 viral marketing techniques that work. I’ve used them in the past and still do.

In fact, most of my blog posts are ranking in Google top 10, because I got a lot of people who share them, willingly. But before we look at these viral marketing techniques, let’s get our brain waves alert.

What is viral marketing?

Viral marketing is the process whereby your content; an article, a blog posts, video, podcasts, a special report, e-book, whitepaper or software is shared by people (target audience) who found value on it and decides to promote it for you – without you asking them to do so.

Does that make sense?

Now, from this definition, it shows that for a content to go viral – it must be easy to share and also valuable (share-worthy).

Can you see the major reason why your content wasn’t shared by readers?

It could be possible that you didn’t ADD value to it. Or perhaps, you didn’t make it easy for them to share it.

Viral marketing techniques are simple steps you can take to ensure that your blog posts, articles, videos and whatever content type you produce gets shared by others.

Viral marketing goes beyond tweeting or liking the page – it also means citation and recommendations.

Viral marketing is not content marketing. It’s just a strategy used to get better results for every piece of content you write and publish.

Now, let’s consider the 13 viral marketing techniques that can bring you more web traffic:

1. Make your content relevant

What is the heart of marketing? It simply states that when you love your prospects and customers, they’d love you back.

When you’re writing content that you want others to share, it must be relevant to them. It doesn’t have to appeal to everybody, but to a specific group.

If your content is for small business owners, don’t worry about bloggers or multimillion dollar entrepreneurs.

When you stay relevant to a select group of people, they’d be persuaded to share the content with their small group as well.

And when you combine two smaller groups together, the result will be BIG traffic to your website. Just from a single content you wrote that was relevant and interesting.

2. Brainstorm new ideas

If you look around the web and blogosphere today, you’ll find good content everywhere. The target audience is tired of good-enough. Take it or leave it!

They’re searching desperately for great content that’s fresh and may be out-of-context to the generic ideas flying around.

In fact, if you want to stand out from the teaming crowd of content marketers and bloggers, you’ll need to brainstorm new ideas before writing your content.

In order to get people to share your post and tell their friends and family about your website, your ideas have to pique their minds.

The idea you need to get your content shared willingly by the ideal customers doesn’t have to be heavenly or something extraordinary – but it must be touchy and attractive. You could take up an old idea and add your own flavor to it.

For instance, a lot of articles have been written concerning viral marketing – but I’ve decided to make mine unique and resourceful. Wouldn’t you be more inclined to share this particular post?

3. Use simple words & terms

If you want to drive web traffic that truly converts to subscribers and customers, then you MUST start using simple terms.

This is vital to your content going viral because if your readers and ideal customers are beginners and intermediates, BIG and uncommon terms might piss them off.

When you use “SEO” in your article and the people who will read it the most are upcoming internet marketers, ensure that you explain what it means.

And at the end of the funnel, you’ll make more profit. Isn’t that what content marketing entails? I guess so!

6. Think like a designer

What do designers do?

First, they conceive an idea. Write it down on their journal or Evernote.

Then they’d sketch a wireframe of what they saw in their minds. They’d look and study the wireframe (skeleton) thoroughly before doing the real work.

At the end of the day, the design always comes out dazzling. Tell me, would you share a beautiful web design template with your friend? Definitely!

As a content marketer or blogger, don’t just write articles without having an idea first in your head. You need a draft before writing the real article that can be published.

If you can put much effort into your content as you do when travelling out of your country, then you’ll touch lives easily.

And when you’re touching lives, other people will form a circuit and promote the same content that changed their lives.

I’ve done this several times and saw more than 20 persons share my latest blog posts on their blog. Isn’t it wonderful?

7. Minimize the use of “but”

Each time you use “but” in your content, you’re contradicting what you just said.

In the case of viral marketing, that word can discourage people from sharing and citing you to their world. When you’ve said a positive thing, don’t counter it with “but” because it can suggest negativity.

As an expert, be true to your word. When you make a negative or positive statement – be bold enough to stand and defend it. That’s what people are looking for.

Yes, on few occasions, you might say something that’s wrong or off-point. Don’t cower or blame others or circumstances. Be confident and creatively explain what you meant.

But don’t contradict that statement. Your target audience will definitely share your content if they discover that you’re a man who doesn’t HIDE from his shadows.

8. Activate few share buttons

On the internet, few share buttons are always better. It triggers more and quality shares.

So, activate Facebook, Twitter and Google+ buttons on your single post. That’s all you need coupled with other viral marketing techniques to get great traffic.

9. Use the right marketing channels

Yes, if you create video, the best and cherished channel is YouTube.

What about Infographics and Images – Pinterest. If you want to announce an upcoming product and website launch, Twitter is better-off than Facebook. For podcast – just use itunes.

On the other hand, when you want to share a link to a landing or squeeze page, Facebook could be your best bet.

Always use the right marketing channels initially to start off your viral marketing campaign.

Because these channels/mediums will expose your campaign to the right people and cause them to promote you.

10. Persuade influencers to share your content

Who are the influencers in your niche?

They’re those internet marketers, pro bloggers, super affiliates and entrepreneurs who have built loyal communities. In other words, influencers have thousands of twitter followers, Facebook likes and active email subscribers.

Over time, influencers have helped thousands of people to actualize their goals. People love them and listen to them. Now how can you take advantage of their tribe to promote your content? The first rule is that your content must be epic.

Second, interview an industry expert and make sure you talk about them more. Yes, you can ask questions, but focus on them 95%. When I read the article titled, is P90x good for women, I quickly sent it to my niece to see if she can choose that.

Because at the end of the day, if the interview is about them and their success stories, the expert can tweet it and that can lead to massive retweets and shares from authority websites.

Retweets can bring in thousands of free traffic to your website. Isn’t it so?

11. Pick low-hanging keywords

Keyword research is important. I’ve covered several aspects of picking the right keywords to target, so I wouldn’t want to rehash the same idea in this post.

But did you know that when you optimize your content for low-hanging keyword, it can lead to high rankings? Read about it here.

Yes, long-tail key phrases are the best way to dominate Google top 10. People who search Google for information have needs in their lives.

They want to solve it as well as recommend the solution to others. If your webpage appears in Google #1 – #5, you’ll drive a lot of targeted traffic to your website.

Also, these quality visitors would in turn share your post with others as a way of building their own networks and relationship.

The result will be relevant and authority backlinks, sustained rankings and avalanche of free targeted traffic.

12. Entertain readers before educating them

Entertainment is not only for Hollywood Celebs or Justin Bieber. Bloggers and content marketers can do it as well because it always leads to more followers and the like.

It doesn’t really matter what problems you want to solve for people, don’t bore them to death.

Even if your content is helpful and has some of the best tips and strategies to excel in life and business, you still must entertain. In fact, some articles that went viral didn’t solve any problem. But they were super-entertaining.

The popular music “Gangnan Style” that had more than 220 million views on YouTube didn’t solve any problem – it was entertaining and could make your blood hot.

That’s all you need when you write a blog post or article or create video. And people will be forced to share it – just for the fun of it.

Yes, solve a problem. It’s important to do that. But don’t forget to entertain before educating people.

13. Write from within, not without

The best content writers don’t just follow the latest trends and base their opinions on it. Instead, they listen to their inner voices and write from a unique perspective.

Yes, most of what you’ll ever write online had already been written by experts.

But the best way to make sure that your content sticks out and gets others to share it is to write from within, not without. Research, have a quiet session and use your brain.

When everybody is talking about Google Penguin 2.0 and how to recover from it, they were all sharing the same link building rules.

I by-passed all that and created a different blog post that’s focused on email marketing as the best way to stop worrying over Google updates.

Guess what? I got 13 authority blogs linking to me – and that enhanced my rankings in Google for that term.

When I write content, it’s usually from my “brain” and research – it’s different from what every blogger and their readers already know.

Why not do the same thing and see if people will share your content or not? I guarantee you they will.

Viral marketing hack

At some point in your content marketing career, you may want to minimize the amount of content you put out there, so that you can pay more attention to quality – not quantity.

These viral marketing strategies can help you get more tweets, likes, pins, social signals and drive free traffic to your website.

I want to hear your thoughts on these viral marketing techniques. What do you think is the best way to get other people to share your content willingly? Leave your comment in the box right below – See you at the top!

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74 Comments

Understand the latest buzz in the market. If you know what people are talking about you can send information about it and become the part of that hype. For this you need to be updated and ready to produce the information as soon as the buzz starts in the market. If you are too date you will not be able to cash in the full potential of the hype and the opportunity will be lost forever. You can also use press releases and social networking sites as viral marketing techniques. Press releases are the fastest way of informing the people about you. Press releases are distributed to different platforms and can be sent to a targeting audience or to general public depending on your needs. The social networking sites have made a great impact and are growing rapidly. In a few years’ time Facebook has gained more than six hundred million users. It enables you to contact with likeminded people help your marketing needs. Social networking sites have made the sharing of content very easy and are considered a vital part of viral marketing techniques.Dana Q. Booth recently posted..No last blog posts to return.

Anyway, nice list of techniques, Michael. I’ve recently read so many articles about this topic, so the techniques aren’t really fresh, except for one. And that’s to use simple words and terms.

I mean, that’s not a new idea, but some complicate their articles by forgoing simple terminologies. That’s not a good thing. Your reader might get irritated and leave your content for something much easier to understand.
Pretty nice piece of content, Michael. Keep it up.

What a brilliant advice, never thought of getting featured on bloggers’ newsletters, a quote comes to mind my dad used to say…. work hard and work smart cheers mateMartin recently posted..Web Design Trends Gaining Popularity in 2013

Hi Michael,
While the points you have made about triggering viral contents are very clear, I would like to comment on the number 10 viral marketing technique – “Persuade influencers to share your content”.

This technique is about the most powerful technique I have seen. Apart from creating valuable or relevant content, shares by influencers easily makes the marketer leverage on the audience of experts.

A very helpful post you have written!

I left this comment in kingged.com where this post was shared and “kingged”.

I will definitely be trying out some of these tactics in the coming days with my blog. Yes last five points are really strong and can do wonders to improve traffic. thanks for sharingKinakatu recently posted..4 DAYS 3 NIGHTS FROM SOUTH TO THE NORTH

Love these amazing, with so many great tips I really don’t know what to say but write trending post is really hard to give what you readers want but do it like you said the best way to go.Ferb recently posted..So Sick – Ne-Yo – Ferb Huynh

Actually, I’m searching for this kind of article about this issue for about 1 hour in bing. After a long search I found this website where this topic and information shared very clearly. It’s really logical and perfect for this time being. I will try to visit this website regularly and waiting to get more awesome news from here. I will help thousands of people damn sure.

Thanks for your comment, but I’ll have to disagree too.
Even though you can’t outright control control content that goes viral, you can do something to ensure it does. The tips I believe have helped me achieve this feat. And trust me, when a particular content goes viral, it can bring more than traffic spikes. What about the increased organic rankings and brand awareness. Think about it.

I have to ask a question about “but” thing because i am using lots of this term in my blog posts. It is very hard for me writing blog posts without using this term. So, can you tell me any alternative or replacement for this term because according to your blog post, this thing is killing my blog posts. So, kindly email me in the given mail (I provided in the box).Gaurav Sharma recently posted..Most Effective ways of Calls to Action in the world of Twitter: It’s the time to rule on Twitter

Between 1996/1997, Hotmail was one of the first internet business’s to become extremely successful utilizing viral marketing techniques by inserting the tagline “Get your free e-mail at Hotmail” at the bottom of every e-mail sent out by its users. Hotmail was able to sign up 12 million users in 18 months.Alton Bradley recently posted..No last blog posts to return.

Very well done!
I can’t agree more with about 13 viral marketing techniques. It’s no doubt that content is very important in the success of blog. Thank you for sharing those useful information. I will try to do it all 13 techniques to make my blog better.Kuler recently posted..How to add Attributes to products in OpenCart?

Nowadays Viral marketing is used in all the fields and this is the best way to promoting a business, particular products, blogs etc through a website. But it all depends on the viewers or attractive information. Else you had clear all the essential points to be considered to get the more web traffic. Thanks for sharing this post.

Excellent, You have mention the last 5 points is really good. i think we should implemented on the website and really it will be boost the site and also increase the traffic.
Thanks for sharing such a wonderful blog.

In order to take the most of your viral marketing is to get loads of publicity and awareness of your business site. You need traffic that actually converts to customers. With a little creativity, many companies managed to have very effective viral marketing strategies which boosted their website, business and/or products and services.Dean P. Patterson recently posted..No last blog posts to return.

So, activate Facebook, Twitter and Google buttons on your single post. That’s all you need coupled with other viral marketing techniques to get great traffic.Marcos J. Chapman recently posted..No last blog posts to return.

Below, you can see our viral content marketing campaign results, which impacted our client’s 271% organic traffic increase. It’s important to note that these results were generated by a single outreach placement on Buzzfeed.com, with a nofollow link .Joel Torres recently posted..No last blog posts to return.

Whether you’re a seasoned social media guru, or someone who has spent some time watching a few cat videos on YouTube, no doubt you’ve wondered: “What made this video/article/blog/website get shared so much?”. I’ve compiled responses from some of the top ‘viral marketing’ experts from around the US to give you some insights into how exactly they come up with the concept for a viral marketing campaign, and how to get it to go viral.Social Media and Internet Analyst Brad Hines says: “Going viral is like a calculus function mixed with the element of randomness. You need a very specific combo of things, and then luck thrown in. I say calculus, because sometimes it works, and other times it doesn’t.” Larry Weintraub, CEO of Fanscape , also has similar sentiments: “What works today or in 3 months may not work next year. There is never a guarantee to going viral, only ways to improve your odds.”Below is the full, unadulterated list of the top tips from some of this year’s successful viral experts. I tried to keep this list focused only on brands that weren’t well known so the brand name itself couldn’t be tied to how viral a piece of content became.Blaine C. Barrett recently posted..No last blog posts to return.

I’ve compiled responses from some of the top ‘viral marketing’ experts from around the US to give you some insights into how exactly they come up with the concept for a viral marketing campaign, and how to get it to go viral.

It’s an interesting idea for sure. But as far as I’m concerned making content “viral” is like catching lightning in a bottle. There’s no equation for it, you just have to put out some earnest content and hope for the best.

Below, you can see our viral content marketing campaign results, which impacted our client’s 271% organic traffic increase. It’s important to note that these results were generated by a single outreach placement on Buzzfeed.com, with a nofollow link .Wallace O. Crawford recently posted..No last blog posts to return.

I’ve been looking all over the internet for good viral marketing techniques I can use for my blog. Definitely learned a great tip or two here. I’ll keep these tips in mind when I finally kick start my viral marketing implementation. Wish me luck! And thanks for sharing this post. Definitely useful.Mike Huiwitz recently posted..how to get ur ex back

People want to read content which is informative and which aims at helping them , the content which is moderate in length is always appreciated by the people so viral marketing is all about quality and informative content.

So, activate Facebook, Twitter and Google buttons on your single post. That’s all you need coupled with other viral marketing techniques to get great traffic.Lupe recently posted..No last blog posts to return.

This is one of the most effective strategies to attract immense, constant and consistent traffic. The essence of viral marketing is to reach out to as many Internet users as possible.Barney A. Moss recently posted..No last blog posts to return.

Between 1996/1997, Hotmail was one of the first internet business’s to become extremely successful utilizing viral marketing techniques by inserting the tagline “Get your free e-mail at Hotmail” at the bottom of every e-mail sent out by its users. Hotmail was able to sign up 12 million users in 18 months.Janell recently posted..No last blog posts to return.

Some really great pieces of advice and a really great post in general. It is not only detailed but very informative. I especially like and agree with the section where you have mentioned it is as important to entertain the reader as it is to educate them.